As always, the first thing Dis did when he awoke was to scan the state of the world. The news channels on his favourites list paraded across his consciousness at a rate of eight per second, and after he’d had his fill he disconnected them and sighed. Well, the planet was still here, though he felt sadness that over a hundred animals had perished during the night from getting too close to the force fields protecting the Nexuses. Surely something could be done about that – a field that just pushed them away rather than killed them must be possible. The technology hadn’t been changed since the Wars Era and he thought it was about time something else was devised. He made a note to research into that later. Shouldn’t be too difficult.
What to do today? Yesterday he’d spent time in the Old Files experiencing life before the Wars but everything was so different then: everything was physical. Mankind had been a slave to matter – things could hurt you, cause you pain, even kill you. People had had to earn a living or die. The animals still did, of course, but ever since the last human being had uploaded, back in Year Zero, the only time anyone actually materialised in a real physical body was when a Nexus needed repair, and that didn’t happen very often.
Today, all that was needed was energy. Lots of it. And the Big Mirror would continue to provide more than they would ever need until the Sun died. What then? There were committees looking into that, though action wouldn’t be needed for a long time yet.
And Dis had found ‘going back’ all so alien – it felt strange, unnatural, dangerous, to see and feel things in the way they did then. Having a physical body felt like wearing an invisible glove: everything was a bit slow, and somehow dulled. But at the same time, that ‘everything’ included stuff so different from what he was used to, that it was fascinating. He was also interested to find that the longer he stayed in a body the less conscious of it he became. Like everyone else, he had once had a physical existence, had lived in a house, had gone to work. But that was so far in the past that he no longer had any real recollection of it. He’d thought that experiencing the Old Files might have brought back memories of his former, corporeal, life – but it hadn’t.
And so, he asked himself again, what to do today? For a few seconds he surfed the Net for inspiration. Nothing grabbed his attention. He could write more to one of his his essays or papers – they were on a variety of scientific subjects, and he had many followers – but he needed to gather his thoughts and ideas before he did that; or he could start thinking about how to redesign the force fields to protect some animals, he supposed, but he wasn’t really in the mood for that at the moment. He wanted diversion. Entertainment, pure and simple.
Just then he became aware that someone was trying to contact him. He scanned the code but didn’t recognise it. He accepted the communication. In the following half-second a conversation took place which changed his life.
“Hi. My name is Badar. I saw your post on N32 about consciousness. Interesting. I’ve been thinking along similar lines – you may have seen a paper I wrote some months ago. I’m especially interested in the mechanics of pleasure. There is an experiment I’d like to conduct with you, if you’re interested.”
“Ok, tell me more,” invited Dis.
There followed a technical discussion about the nature of consciousness, and Badar proposed possible ways that the intensity of pleasure could be increased. These would involve a close meshing of their two minds, and much temporary re-assigning of their neural net pathways. He considered Badar’s suggestions and indeed, he thought, there were possibilities here.
After quickly verifying Badar’s credentials and reading the paper he’d mentioned, Dis was satisfied. He did a local mind backup, then said, “Ok. Let’s try it.” The feeling was a little strange – and, he had to admit, exciting – when he released the locks in the appropriate parts of his mind.
He was acutely conscious of Badar’s close presence and watched as pathways were re-routed, and new subrouties were inserted. When it was completed he felt no different.
“Now, experience something that gives you pleasure,” said Badar.
Dis called up Kalovski’s second symphony and listened. It was one of his favourites and never failed to make him feel good.
When it was over he analysed how he felt. There was a difference, certainly, but he couldn’t say that it was better than usual.
Badar changed neural net pathways several times, and after each adjustment Dis experienced something that normally gave him pleasure in one way or another. The results were the same: different, certainly, but not necessarily better.
Dis thanked Badar for getting in touch, disconnected, and reloaded the backup he’d made earlier so that everything was as it had been before.
The experiment, although it had not really been very successful, had made him think.
His mind kept going back to the Old Files he had experienced earlier. Although it had still only been virtual reality, there was something about the physicality that it had conveyed that made everything more – how to express it? - immediate - somehow. Perhaps there was mileage in exploring that route. He called up his consciousness map and studied it for an hour, then contacted Badar again.
“Badar. Your experiments made me think.” Dis then explained his idea.
Badar though about this. “It’s a possibility I hadn’t considered, I’ll give you that.” He thought some more. “It could be unpleasant if we were not careful.”
“Human beings lived like that. They survived.”
“Yes, they did. Though there was much pain and much distress in their lives.”
“Well, we will be careful.”
“Ok. So what should we experience?”
“I think that gastronomy would be a good start. It was one of their primary pleasures.”
“Gastronomy?” There was a pause while Badar researched this. “The appreciation of good food. Yes, that seems promising… though there is another that appears to have been, if anything, even more important to them: sex.”
“Sex?” From Dis’s experiences of the old files he knew about sex, but it hadn’t occurred to him to consider it. “Ah. Yes. There would seem to be much possibility for pleasure there. Very well. We will adopt physical forms and meet at the Goldar Nexus.”
Of course Dis was aware that there had been male and female forms of humans, and he had naturally selected a male form – if he thought of himself as either, it was as male – but he was surprised when Badar materialised in front of him to see that he was also a male. This was irrelevant, though it would mean a different set of activities.
“It is important, I think,” said Badar, “that each of us selects a physical form that the other finds attractive. I will step through some. Stop me when you are happy.”
His form blurred as a succession of different bodies - some male, some female - appeared for a split second one after the other.
“Stop!” Dis had no idea why, but the form Badar was now in did something to him he could not put a name to. He was experiencing lust. “Refine,” he said.
Now the body stayed the same, but the hair, eyes, and clothing changed rapidly.
“Stop!” Dis stared at the vision in front of him and experienced a substantial increase in that lust.
“Now you,” said Badar.
It was a moment before Dis could collect himself, but then he too flashed through different forms.
“There!”
The way Badar was staring at him suggested that he, too, was mesmerised by the way Dis looked.
They regarded each other. They were both male. Badar was a late teenage boy. He was smaller than Dis, with an athletic body, fuzzy blond hair and blue eyes. He was extremely cute. The boy was wearing a tight teeshirt, even tighter faded jeans, and white trainers.
Dis was somewhere in his mid twenties, with a muscular body, short black hair, green eyes, dark stubble and a very short beard. He was in full black leather biker gear.
“I detect that you wish to be dominated,” said Dis.
“It would appear so. The possibility is, I have to confess, exciting.”
“Very well.” Dis looked around. They were standing in the ruins of an old city. The local Nexus, shining golden in the afternoon sunlight, was visible close by. He accessed the Net and there was a loud clap of displaced air as a new building appeared around them.
They stood in a bare stone room. In the centre was a table. Dis had surmised that for Badar black leather was for some reason a powerful stimulus, so he had covered the table with it. “Lie down.”
It felt strange to explore the boy’s body. Dis’s fingers ran over it slowly as he absorbed the unfamiliar experience of touch. Being in an actual physical body, he realised, was different to how the virtual one had felt when he’d been experiencing the Old Files: it felt more complete, somehow. Badar’s eyes were closed and he moaned with pleasure whenever the fingers found erogenous areas. Very soon, guided by Badar’s responses to what he did, Dis was concentrating on the growing bulge in the boy’s jeans. He smiled in wonder at how the denim felt as it slid sensuously beneath his fingertips.
A few moments later the boy arched his back and thrust his hips. His whole body shook, and he yelled. Dis felt the bulge beneath his fingers pulse and throb, and a dark, wet, warm stain began to spread quickly through the faded denim of his jeans.
“Are you Ok?” asked Dis, startled.
It was a moment before the boy could speak. “Oh yes. Oh YES! Dis, you have to experience that! It is unbelievable!”
They swapped places, and Badar went to work on the leather-covered cock. Dis looked up into the boy’s blue eyes, thinking how beautiful he was, and wanting to run his hands through the blond hair. Very soon he, too, felt orgasm for the first time. It was more amazing than he would have ever believed.
“This is wonderful! How can we intensify it? Let me research...” Dis’s eyes glazed over for a moment as he scanned the Net. He smiled. “Oh yes.”
They changed places again, and there were pops of air as restraints sprang into existence attached to the table. Dis took the boy’s wrists and ankles and fastened them in. He discovered how to undo Badar’s jeans, and pulled them down, staring at the naked cock that bounced up as it was released. He looked down at the beautiful boy and marveled at the new needs that he felt now that Badar was physically helpless. The thought that the boy would be unable to stop him from doing anything he wanted to him was intoxicating. A filmy piece of soft material appeared in his hand. He applied the edge of the material to the head of the boy’s cock and stroked it over the glistening glans, then ran it slowly over the whole thing, up and down the shaft and over the tip.
Badar’s face was a picture: he was frowning and licking his lips. Quiet moaning noises were coming from him and his body was squirming in the restraints. He knew he needed to reach orgasm again – and quickly – but Dis was not providing enough stimulation for him to be able to do that. Instead, the things he was doing were simply increasing his need for orgasm.
“I need more pressure – and faster.”
Dis smiled. “I know you do.”
For some reason, the way Dis had said that sent shivers through him and made him need to cum even more urgently. He realised with a start that Dis was intentionally withholding the stimulus he needed. It hadn’t occurred to him that this was a possibility – and now that it had, it fuelled his lust and horniness beyond all reason. Thus far he had just been lying on the table, but now he found himself pulling at the wrist cuffs, trying to get a hand to his cock to alleviate the unbearable itch of longed-for orgasm - and the reason why Dis had restrained him hit him. This was unfair! He knew now exactly how intense and wonderful orgasm was – and that he was so close to achieving it again – but this time Dis had arranged things so that he couldn’t control it, couldn’t do anything about it. Nothing. He thrust his hips in an effort to push his cock harder into the soft material but it made no difference. Unable to take it much longer he tried to relieve the frustration by getting his cock away from the maddeningly light stroking, but even that was impossible as Dis carefully followed it wherever he moved, teasing it unbearably.
It was both heavenly and unendurable. Every single stroke of his cock (Dis had put the material down and was using his fingers now) felt unbelievably beautiful – he’d never experienced pleasure like that before – but at the same time the way he was doing it so slowly, the way he had got him restrained, to make him helpless, vulnerable – all of this somehow made it so much more intense, so much more frustrating. And so much more horny.
The boy looked up at the guy tormenting him. He saw in the green eyes something he recognised as sadism. That Dis was enjoying making him suffer in such an unbearable but wonderful way increased his feeling of need even further. He ran his eyes over the black leather jacket, the tight, bulging leather jeans, the studded belt of the gorgeous guy working on him. Even the sound of his boots on the hard floor was wonderful. Badar could not imagine a more sexually powerful sight. He felt an urgent need to feel the leather – and the amazingly horny guy in it - against his skin: to lick, to smell, to worship. Everything seemed to have been calculated to make his need for orgasm more compelling than he could deal with, and the fact that he knew that Dis was doing all of thison purpose made it worse still. The boy felt helpless, but much, much more than that: he felt as if he were being tortured in the one way that he was the most susceptible to, by a leather-clad vision he fancied insanely. And the bulge in Dis’s leather jeans was evidence that the guy was getting off bigtime on making him suffer as much as was possible.
“Please! No more! I can’t take it! Make me cum!”
Dis stopped working on the cock, and climbed onto the table on top of Badar, with his knees beyond the blond head and his leather crotch above the boy’s face. Badar let out a moan of pure ecstasy as the cool, shiny, sexy leather made contact with his naked skin – but that moan was as nothing when Dis took the desperate cock between his hot lips. He gave vent to a strained yell of utter longing.
The boy was writhing in pleasure under him as Dis used his tongue on the glans of Badar’s cock. He swirled it very slowly around the sensitive head, and Badar experienced need such as he had never felt before. He had been very close to cumming for some time, but now that tongue was getting him still closer – and closer yet.
Badar was on the point of screaming to be allowed orgasm when suddenly Dis lowered his head and took the boy’s entire cock into his mouth. He sucked, used his tongue, and bounced his head up and down along its length.
The scream turned into one of inexpressable ecstasy as the boy’s cock exploded and he began to cum in Dis’s milking mouth. He rammed his face into the bulging crotch above him and worked on the cock with his mouth through the black leather.
Tormenting the cute boy had got Dis close to cumming a long time ago, and now the feel of Badar’s teeth sliding over his leather-covered cock pushed him over the edge. He, too, began to cum.
Their orgasms were long and extremely intense. Muffled moans and yells came from both of them and their bodies squirmed against each other on the table in the throes of extreme pleasure.
When it was over Dis released the boy and they sat side by side on the edge of the table. “I would never have believed that was possible,” said Dis.
Badar nodded. The fringe of his blond hair was spiky with sweat and his blue eyes were open wide in wonder. “That was incredible.”
They sat in silence for a while, each replaying in their minds what had happened.
“I think we lost much in Year Zero.”
“Oh, didn’t we just.”
There was more silence.
“You know -”
“I think -”
They had both spoken at once. “After you,” said Badar.
“I was considering the possibility of doing this more often.”
“I was thinking exactly the same thing.”
“There is much more we can do with this...” Said Dis. “There are many things to try. Other tortures, other pleasures. The archives are full of them.” He turned his head and looked at the boy. His tee shirt was wet, his skintight jeans were covered in spunk. He looked good enough to eat. And Dis also realised that he was experiencing something very new, and very deep: he thought it was called love.
Badar turned as well. The figure at his side was perfect: good-looking, muscular, powerful. And the shiny black leather was like sexual armour – to the boy it suggested both a capability and an intention of doing things to him that he wouldn’t be able to stop, wouldn’t be able to fight against. That alone was excitingly worrying, but the tight black leather was also irresistibly seductive: the magnetic pull it seemed to exert - to touch it, lick it, feel it against his body - made him want those tortures more than anything else in the world. He realised that his consciousness in the Nexus Net was a pale shadow of what he had experienced here. And he, too, felt the stirrings of a deep emotional attachment to Dis.
At exactly the same time, they leaned towards each other and kissed. The kiss was hard and passionate. Dis pulled the boy’s head, crushing his lips against his own. Badar’s hands ran over the leather jacket, the bulging leather jeans; Dis stroked his fingers through the boy’s blond hair, over his body and his smooth, tight denim thighs, exploring between his legs.
“I need this,” gasped Badar when they parted for long enough for him to speak.
“So do I.” They kissed again.
Then they rolled back onto the table.
* * *
They had each tidied up their business, messsaged their friends.
“Shall we do it?”
“Are you quite sure you want to?”
“I am. I have thought about it for long enough now. I need it.”
“This will be permanent. You know that.”
“I do.”
“Very well.”
Both together they wiped their local conciousnesses. There was no going back now.
They stood on the surface of the Earth at the side of the Nexus. In the distance was a large building complex; it had a huge food store, but the rest of it mostly consisted of dungeons. It was much bigger than the bare room Dis had conjured the first time they’d come here. Disconnected permanently from the Net, they would not be able to materialise things any more. Anything they wanted now they would have to make the hard way.
Badar gazed at the leather boy. He smiled. “Year Zero,” he said. They kissed, and then they stepped into the world together as human beings, for the first time.